I'm preparing a young student for her prep test. I haven't entered anyone for this before, and just wondered if anyone could give me some advice about the free choice piece. Does it need to be at around the same standard as the ones in the Prep Test book? (It's piano, by the way.) Thanks in advance!

Yes around the same standard. I've got one pupil using Upgrade 0-1 by Pam Wedgewood this time round. Party Time by Michael Rose and Roundabout by Alan Haughton also have pieces of the right standard.

I think it depends on your student. I've had some who could only just manage that level, but have had a few others who were able to play something a bit more complex. I had one girl who wanted to use a piece that had been used for Grade 1 a couple of years before, and she managed it very well.
Chinese Lantern from Roundabout has always been a great favourite! And most of them love Boating Lake, which I'm pleased about because it requires expressive playing.

Apparently it is indeed absolutely free choice, so can be as basic as you like. That said, I encourage my pupils to choose something which is around the same level as the set pieces. One student who is due to take her exam in a few weeks is intending to play her own composition.

It would be interesting to see the examiner's reaction if a candidate launched into, say, a Liszt Transcendenal Etude for their free choice piece.

Transcendental, even!

Yeah, that too.

...after Boating Lake!

Most of my Prep Test pupils have prepared an own choice piece around the same level of the set pieces or from the books suggested (Party Time etc.) However, I have occasionally had a pupil taking the Prep Test who haw fallen between Prep and Grade 1 standard, or has come to me too late in the year to prepare a complete Grade 1 exam. In those cases I have used a Grade 1 piece from a previous Grade 1 book. The idea has been to give them some exam experience without overloading them.

However, recently I haven't bothered with the Prep Test as parents have made remarks about having to pay for an exam which doesn't have a "proper" result.

A connected question, I hope!

I have a little recorder player who is hopefully doing his Prep Test in the summer. He could do one of the pieces in the Prep Test book for his 'free choice', I know, but if he decided he didn't like any of those, I've been thinking what else he could do instead. And I've hit the problem that there is (as far as I can find) really NO music at that level for descant recorder with piano. (And the free choice piece has to be with piano.) It is all solo, or possibly with a CD. The best I can find is a book that has chord symbols for the accompanist - do you think an examiner could deal with that??

It may interest you to know I took the piano prep test at the age of 58 I was so nervous as I had not taken any exams since my Nursing qualification in the 1960s, especially as other candidates seems so young. I got a very encouraging report which concluded with " ready to move on to the grade exams"

I felt it was a huge achievement. Go for it!


Cannot remember what free choice piece I played but think it was a nearly grade 1 piece

I haven't come across Party Time before (except for Violin). But I assume from that that it must be around the same standard as John Schaum A book, and my candidate is thinking about preparing something from that. Does this sound okay?

I know what you mean about an exam without a "proper" result. I have never bothered with the Prep test before, partly for that reason, and partly because no-one has seemed to need it. But this wee girl is dyslexic, and things are taking rather longer to sink in. She also sees her elder brother take exams and wants to know when she will take her Grade 1. But she's quite a way off yet, so this seems to be a good in-between goal for her to work towards, and Mum is really keen.

The Trinity College Initial exam is a good introduction to exams and is amarked in the same way a s other grades. I call it Grade Half. All intruments are covered.

Does that mean you can pass or fail it?

It's usually a piece from that book - or very early in book B - that mine end up using for the Prep Test. "Bells Are Ringing" has been popular...

It's very sad to read of parent attitudes which see Prep test as irrelevant because it does not yield a proper result. Small wonder that so many of today's teenagers are deprived of proper values. If Music lessons and exams are seen as a mere opportunity to pick up paper qualifications, what about the value of encouragement, positive suggestions, the joy of playing for its own sake and the opportunity for once only to choose what you want to present to the examiner?

LR

Free choice is free choice.

Mine have ranged from real baby pieces to Grade 1 pieces.

I think it depends on the personality of the candidate.

I play them 4 or 5 pieces and let them choose but obviously I've pre-selected the 4 or 5 - quite challenging pieces for the capable but slightly lazy ones that need a bit of a push, nice and safe pieces for the slower, less confident players.

As to the value of the Prep exam, I think it is great for young pupils who won't be ready for Grade 1 for at least another year, it's been a major hit and a real positive experience for my students.

However, the poster who said her parents were finding it too expensive lives in France where the Prep exam costs about 50 euros. This is a LOT of money, whether there's a pass/fail at the end or not.

I certainly don't enter students over age 10/11 (unless there are exceptional circumstances) or younger ones who'll be ready for Grade 1 if we wait 6 months or so. Better, frankly, that the parents economise on exams and carry on lessons than drop music altogether because it blows the budget.

The tutor books "Recorder From the Beginning" by John Pitts have a teacher' book to go with them with piano accompaniments. The first book is probably too easy but there might be something useful in the second one.

I don't know if the Oxford Recorder books are still in print but the first one - I've got very old copies of the pupil's book and the accompaniment book does have some Prep test level pieces.

Don't know if this helps.

I've had one student do piano prep test and he played something a little easier than the set pieces for his own choice. We chose it as it was a piece he really enjoyed playing and his obvious enjoyment of the pieces was noted on the certificate.

Ah right. Great idea. We are using Recorder From the Beginning, but I don't have the teacher's book (recorder is not my main instrument, and this kid and his brother are my only recorder pupils, so it didn't really seem worth investing), so I hadn't clicked. I'll see if I can get hold of a library copy.

Thanks!

I've just written a piece for recorder and piano using just G-D with simple rhythms if that's of any interest.

And jolly nice it is too, Czerny!

Well I have Claire21 to thank for inspiring me!

Sounds like you've got an idea for a book now, but it is possible to accompany pupils yourself for the prep test (then you could read the chord symbols rather than the examiner). I've done this myself when pupils have been really nervous and wanted a familiar face in the exam with them.

As well as the Trinity Initial exam, London College also offer the Steps exams which are a pre-grade one marked assessment (with fail, pass, merit, and distinction).

In the prep test guidelines, it says that the own choice piece (for piano at least) should be around 16 bars in length, so that might be something to take into consideration. Apart from that, I would jus make sure the student can play the piece comfortably and enjoy it!

My first student to enter a prep test exam did it last week and she was so excited beforehand and loved playing her pieces. The free choice was a really vibrant, but relatively simple piece that she played with such gusto and enthusiasm that the examiner asked her to play it a second time! (I was a bit shocked when I heard that, in case she might have thought she did something wrong?! But she told me that she was very happy to play it again because she loved playing so much, so she just launched right back into it again!) It turned out that he had never heard the piece before and it was quite unusual, so he was surprised when she played it.

Her report was glowing and I feel very sad at the fact that some parents don't see the prep test as worth taking because "there isn't a real result" - of course there is a real result! This little girl played her heart out and received a big certificate that told her how beautifully she played, how enjoyable her performance was and that she played with skill. She is now so pleased and doesn't feel like she is just at 'baby level' (which her older sister so kindly reminds her). This particular girl always thinks she isn't very good and although she isn't the most gifted student, she is enthusiastic and just suffers from 'little sister syndrome' (she hears her older sister play - who is quite mean to her sometimes actually - and compares it to her own playing. And of course she wants to be just like her big sister!).

The prep test has given her a great boost of confidence and made her realise that she is good at the playing the piano and that she can create engaging performances.

If that isn't a 'real result', then I don't know what is!

QUOTE : My first student to enter a prep test exam did it last week and she was so excited beforehand and loved playing her pieces. The free choice was a really vibrant, but relatively simple piece that she played with such gusto and enthusiasm that the examiner asked her to play it a second time!

Reminds me of one of mine (a boy who marches to his own drum-beat rather) who, while the examiner was writing out the report, thought he'd play his own choice piece again because he liked it so much and then, on a roll now, promptly played started to play his whole repertoire, including every half-remembered snippet of every piece he'd ever learnt.

I believe in getting value for money but I rather think they examiner had to bodily lift him off the seat or he'd have been there all afternoon.